A church medical team is a crucial component of every church. Apart from dealing with common injuries, this team often administers emergency medical care as well as dealing with severe, life-threatening injuries. As such, it is important to set up this medical team in the right way, putting into consideration the following points.
- Medical Emergency Response Plan
- First, every church should have a medical emergency response plan. This plan should be documented by the church leadership, and adhered to by everyone in the team. Also, there should be documents for incident reporting, like the Medial Emergency Report Sheet.
- Duties
- The duties of every member of the church medical team should be clearly outlined in the Response Plan so that the team can run efficiently. For example, the duties of the team leader and assistant team leader should complement each other.
- Eligibility
- All the members of the medical team should have some experience in healthcare. Church members who have experience in nursing, home health care, emergency medical services, etc should be encouraged to volunteer their services to this team.
- Hierarchy
- Every team should have a team leader who is accountable to and under the guidance of the church leadership. This team leader should work together with the church leaders to form the team and seek guidance on how to form smaller teams that will be on duty at every service.
- Procedures
- For a church medical team to be effective there must be procedures in place. For example, there should be a list of emergencies and expected responses from the Emergency Medical Response Team. In addition, there should be a procedure for keeping records of EMRT actions for both historical records and liability purposes.
- Schedules
- A schedule for the medical response team ensures that all the church services have EMRT members present. If possible, the schedule should indicate the physical position of each team member.
- Training
- Though most of the members will already have some form of medical experience, continuous training in CPR and First Aid techniques is necessary. This training should encompass new emergency medical techniques and should be compulsory for every team member.
- Equipment
- The church should be ready to invest in the proper equipment required for the team to do its job. Every individual in the medical team should have a fully equipped medical bag with a checklist attached. The checklist is used to confirm that all the contents of the medical bag are intact and ready for use.
- “Triage” Area
- The leader of the church medical team will need to identify an area within the facility private enough to be used for medical assistance and observation. This room can also be used as waiting area for patients who are waiting to be transferred to a hospital, and as a debriefing room for the EMRT’s.
- Motivation
- To keep the EMRT motivated, the leadership should get the team members involved in activities outside the normal church duties. These include team building, blood donation drives, wellness camps, fitness clinics, etc.
Finally, for a church medical team to be committed and effective, each member must remember that they are serving the Lord as well as contributing to the safety and well-being of every member of the church.